This game has become too tough in the beginning

[Silver]

Seriously. If you have all expansions, dragons, reaper, werewolf and all the other stuff enabled, and play the game, you and your AI buddies get r@ped so often...drawing creatures with strength or craft 6+ in the first few turns of the game, life-loss events, more and more cards that turn you into a toad, burn tokens when the efreet/jinn invade etc. I'd say only the city is a safe beginner friendly area.

[DirectOrder]

Due to what I feel can be excessive randomness, or because the AI seems to have a disproportionately high difficulty in dealing with them, I play with these turned off:

- Dragon expansion
- Harbinger expansion
- Reaper (figure, not the expansion)
- Werewolf (figure)

Then, to eliminate the (possibly game ending) trauma that being toaded can have, and to give the AI and myself more power to weather the randomness of the game and enact long term strategies, I play with these runestones on all characters:

+ Cannot be toaded
+ Start with +3 Luck

I find that this setup not only "evens out" the randomness, but also lowers the probability of many events that can truely gimp or eliminate a player. There's still plenty of that in the game, but this feels much more manageable, and the AI can often take off and do really well. I find that I get many long, deep, and interesting games; and very few short ones.

[Driss]

I don't think the game is really meant to be played with every expansion at once. For the best and most balanced experience you should try enabling only a couple expansions at a a time. Mixing different ones together is part of what adds to the replayability.

[WingedKagouti]

Originally posted by Denigrate:

Due to what I feel can be excessive randomness, or because the AI seems to have a disproportionately high difficulty in dealing with them, I play with these turned off:

- Dragon expansion
- Harbinger expansion
- Reaper (figure, not the expansion)
- Werewolf (figure)

This is more or less my default expansion setup as well, I do have the characters from Harbinger and Dragon enabled. Harbinger has in my experience been fairly unfun when combined with anything else and Dragon changes a lot about how the game plays.

[DirectOrder]

Originally posted by WingedKagouti:

Harbinger has in my experience been fairly unfun when combined with anything else and Dragon changes a lot about how the game plays.

Yep, I feel the same way.

[LoneSylvan]

I agree ... Dragon and Harbinger OFF as standard - and if there are no re-spawns (which is usual for online games) I keep the reaper figure away too... sometimes Mr.Wolf as well. I also agree that the game was probably not intended to be payed with all the expansions... for one thing they are themed - and definitely in the case of the Dragon and Harbinger - change the whole dynamic of play. Could you imagine playing with all of these with the physical boards??? Cards everwhere - no one remembering what they're supposed to be doing.... It is chaotic to have them all switched on.... and I really don't enjoy that. Tbh I don't like Harbinger much really... it's evil !! (But then it is about the end of the world). Dragon is a nice change occasionally though.

[kaibarnard]

Harbinger expansion is nearly always off - the AI just destroys the world with it

[Klinsk]

I play with all expansions except Harbinger and Woodlands, and sometimes the game feels unbalanced.

[Lothelarien]

I mostly play with all expansion (sometimes without harbringer) and the game is a lot of fun. But I usually play hotseat with myself to roleplay and create a story. To help characters with early game i use +3 health runestone and +3 or +2 fate. I actually love dragons dlc and cant play without it.

[DON GORGON]

harbinger and dragon off is a must !!! and charachters always on !!!

[Klinsk]

What's with Harbinger dislike? I was thinking of purchasing it.

[Quartzquiz]

Originally posted by Klinsk:

What's with Harbinger dislike? I was thinking of purchasing it.

Nothing wrong with it at all. It's just more challenging.

[DirectOrder]

Originally posted by Klinsk:

What's with Harbinger dislike? I was thinking of purchasing it.

It introduces the chance of everyone losing, it puts a "time limit" on the game (and I don't like playing against the clock), and the AI seems to behave as these things don't exist (i.e. the AI doesn't seem to be programmed to understand that they have to play differently to survive, and to make things worse, when they play dumb, they are shortening the timer for you too!)

So, in other words, you have a much greater chance of losing the game, even if you are playing very well and have the game all-but-won, because the AI doesn't know they shouldn't be hanging around the Harbinger drawing events all day long.

(At least this was the case when the expansion was released - I haven't tried it since).

It also brings with it a notable increase to the difficulty and randomness of the game (much more so than any other expansion besides the Dragon expansion).

However, if you want the game to much more intense and chaotic (and don't mind the AI screwing you over and losing the game for you) you may very well love it!

[WingedKagouti]

Originally posted by Klinsk:

What's with Harbinger dislike? I was thinking of purchasing it.

For me it has a lot to do with how the Harbinger NPC works and his effect on the region he is in. Drawing an Event basically messes up the entire region that happens in until someone else draws an Event in a different region.

It can be an interesting twist and it has some neat elements, but if combined with too many other expansions it just turns into a very chaotic mess that doesn't let you appreciate any of the expansions including the Harbinger expansion itself. The expansions that works best with Harbinger are the 4 corner board ones (Dungeon, Highland, City & Woodland) while Blood Moon's special Event mechanics and Lunar Events can make for a rather tedious and/or chaotic session.

The Dragon expansion has a similar effect, though it is less extreme and doesn't mess up the special rules from other expansions as much (if at all).

All the other expansions fit together much more smoothly.

[MNMNMMMNMNM]

At first I thought the dragon expansion was hard. But then I got to know the cards and what to expect. Kind of the same with harbinger. It's definitely a tough expansion. But the more you get to know it, the more you know how to deal with it.

Actually, I think the game is quite manageable with all expansions. When you know the content. ;)

[kaibarnard]

Managable yes - but like many I find the AI frustrating on Harbringer, the Dragon yeh it's stupid sometimes